Method and apparatus for training a call assistant for relay re-voicing

ABSTRACT

A training method and apparatus to train a call assistant to operate a telephone relay system for the hearing impaired that uses a re-voicing technique to produce near real-time transcription of a telephone conversation for display on a caption telephone or other device. The invention simulates an actual relay call as realistically as possible and produces a report on the skill of the particular call assistant being trained.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLYSPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0001] The present invention relates to the training of relay callassistants and specifically to training call assistants to facilitaterelay calls using a re-voicing technique.

[0002] A system for real-time transcription of remotely spoken voicesignals is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,909,482 assigned to the sameassignee as the present invention and hereby incorporated by reference.This system may find use implementing both a “captel” (captiontelephone) in which a user receives both voice and transcribed textthrough a “relay” from a remote second party to a conversation, and a“personal interpreter” in which a user receives through the relay a texttranscription of words originating from the location of the user.

[0003] In either case, a human “call assistant” at the relay, listens tothe voice signal and “re-voices” the words to a speech recognitioncomputer program tuned to that call assistant's voice. Re-voicing is anoperation in which the call assistant repeats, in slightly delayedfashion, the words she or he hears. The text output by the speechrecognition system is then transmitted to the captel or personalinterpreter. Re-voicing by the call assistant overcomes a currentlimitation of computer speech recognition programs; that they need to betrained to a particular speaker and thus, cannot currently handle directtranslation of speech from a variety of users.

[0004] In order for the relay system to work properly, the callassistants must be properly trained. Re-voicing is not a naturalprocess, and call assistants need an opportunity to practice re-voicingbefore becoming proficient enough to be able to handle actual telephonerelay calls efficiently. Additionally, certain situations that callassistants may encounter in actual relay calls may present particulardifficulties to the call assistant. Simulated experience in dealing withthese difficult situations will help maintain a high level of servicewhen such situations actually arise.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0005] The present invention provides a method for training callassistants to use a re-voicing system, as well as an apparatus allowinga call assistant to be trained in as realistic situations as possible.The invention also provides the call assistants and those responsiblefor their training with a gauge of the performance of each callassistant according to several different criteria.

[0006] The invention provides a method for training call assistants thatutilizes linked text and voice scripts. The call assistant re-voiceseach script by listening to the voice portion, and the call assistant'sre-voicing is transformed by a voice recognition program into an outputtext file that can be compared with the corresponding original textfile. This comparison allows a report card to produced for each callassistant showing the re-voicing rate, error rate, etc.

[0007] Without the invention, two other people would be needed to assistfor a call assistant to practice a relay call—one to play the role ofthe hearing party and the other the role of the hearing impaired user.The invention automates the roles of the other two parties,significantly reducing the expense of training a call assistant.

[0008] The invention also seeks to simulate an actual relay session andthe re-voicing process as accurately as possible. Therefore, it includessuch features as a foot pedal or other switch to pause the playback ofthe voice file, simulating the buffering of text by the actual relaysystem, and a display allowing for the call assistant to correctre-voicing errors, simulating the correction process of the actualre-voicing system.

[0009] In the following description, reference is made to theaccompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, and in which there isshown by way of illustration, a preferred embodiment of the invention.Such embodiment also does not define the scope of the invention andreference must be made therefore to the claims for this purpose.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0010]FIG. 1 is a schematic drawing of a call assistant training deviceshowing the linked script, the call assistant, and the resulting outputscript from the voice recognition system;

[0011]FIG. 2 is a schematic drawing of the process of transforming there-voicing of the call assistant into an output text file, including theoptional step of correcting for errors;

[0012]FIG. 3 is a schematic drawing of the component files of the voicerecognition system;

[0013]FIG. 4 is a schematic drawing representing a linked scriptdepicting a bi-directional conversation;

[0014]FIG. 5 is side view of a call assistant training device showing adisplay screen for correcting errors and a foot pedal for pausing thevoice playback;

[0015]FIG. 6 is detailed view of a display screen in one embodiment ofthe invention;

[0016]FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating the steps in a method fortraining relay call assistants;

[0017]FIG. 8 is a schematic drawing of an alternative embodiment of theinvention that does not use a voice recognition system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0018] Referring to FIG. 1, the present invention is a training methodand training device 10 for training a call assistant 12 to facilitate arelay telephone call using a re-voicing technique. The training device10 allows a call assistant 12 to practice the technique of re-voicingand simulates an actual relay call while producing a report 32 thatdisplays the performance of the call assistant 12 according to variouscriteria.

[0019] During training, a call assistant 12, preferably wearing aheadset 14 containing a speaker 16 and a microphone 18, repeats into themicrophone 18 what she hears from the speaker 16. The microphone 18 isconnected to a voice recognition system 26 that transforms the callassistant's voice into an output text file 28. The training device 10may be implemented in standard computer hardware, with the microphoneand speaker connected through a sound card to the computer and thecomputer executing a commercially available speech recognition programsuch as ViaVoice, manufactured by the IBM corporation. The output textfile 28 is stored in computer memory.

[0020] In an actual relay call, the voice of a hearing caller (notshown) would be transmitted to the speaker 16 to be re-voiced by thecall assistant 12, and the output text file 28 would be transmitted to adisplay device (not shown) to be read by the hearing impaired user (notshown). In contrast, in the simulation of a relay call for trainingpurposes, the training device 10 replaces the voice of a hearing callerwith the voice portion 22 of a linked script 20. The linked script 20also includes of a text portion 24 that is a transcription of the voiceportion 22. The voice portion 22 may be standard .wav or other audiotype files and the text portion 24 may be ASCII data both stored on acomputer disk or the like.

[0021] The linked script 20 can be created by having someone read thetext portion 24 to create the voice portion 22 or by transcribing arecorded voice portion 22 to create the text portion 24. The voiceportion 22 of the linked script 20 can be varied according to criteriasuch as the average word rate, peak word rate, accent of the speaker andmay include non text features such as noises and the like, and mayinclude encounters with automatic menu driven answering machines. Inaddition, the voice portion 22 and text portion 24 of the linked script20 can be specifically chosen to include words that are likely to bemisinterpreted by the voice recognition system 26 or words common torelay operators not found in the dictionaries of standard speechrecognition engines.

[0022] Referring now to FIGS. 1 and 7, once the linked script 20 iscreated, the training device 10 executes a stored program to play thevoice portion 22 of the linked script 20 so that the call assistant 12can hear it in the speaker 16. This process of playing the voice portion22 of the linked script 20 is indicated in step 60 of FIG. 7 andinvolves a playing of the audio file through a standard sound cardaccording to techniques well known in the art. As the call assistant 12listens to the voice portion 22, she re-voices what she hears from thespeaker 16 into the microphone 18. The re-voicing process is summarizedin step 62 of FIG. 7. The microphone 18 is connected to a voicerecognition system 26 that transforms the voice of the call assistant 12into an output text file 28 which may be received and stored in the samecomputer as indicated by step 64 of FIG. 7.

[0023] Referring now to FIGS. 1 and 3, the voice recognition system 26contains operator specific files 38 and a vocabulary file 40 to aid inthe transformation of the voice of the call assistant 12 into an outputtext file 28 such as are well understood in the art. The vocabulary file40 is typically compiled by the manufacturer of the commerciallyavailable voice recognition engine (described above) and is notmodifiable. It contains a database of commonly used words andrepresentations of their pronunciation to be used by the voicerecognition engine in converting spoken words into text. In addition toa vocabulary file 40 of common words, manufacturers of voice recognitionengines make available specialized files that contain words commonlyused in law, medicine, engineering, etc.

[0024] The operator specific files 38 in the voice recognition system 26contain the speech patterns and inflections of a particular callassistant 12 as well as words and their accompanying pronunciations thatare not found in the vocabulary file 40 supplied by the manufacturer ofthe voice recognition engine. The operator specific files 38 can becreated and modified in a standard training process that consists ofhaving the call assistant 12 read pre-selected training passages 42 intoa microphone 18 connected to the voice recognition system 26. The callassistant 12 then corrects within the voice recognition system 26 anywords that are mistranslated by the voice recognition system 26.Typically, when a commercially available speech recognition systemmistranslates a word, the user instructs the speech recognition engineto correct the mistake by supplying the correct word. This occurs bothwhen the speech recognition engine chooses the wrong word from itsvocabulary file and when its vocabulary file does not contain thedesired word. In this way, the speech recognition engine “learns” newwords as well as the specific user's pronunciation patterns. Thetraining passages 42 can be selected so as to include particular wordsthat may be difficult for the voice recognition system 26 to recognizeand transcribe accurately, or words that highlight speaker-to-speakervariations in pronunciation.

[0025] The operator specific files 38 can also be modified during thecorrection step of the re-voicing process (described below). When a wordis incorrectly translated by the voice recognition system 26, it can becorrected by the call assistant 12 prior to being recorded in the outputtext file 28. However, the aforementioned correction does not involvethe voice recognition system 26 since it only corrects the output of thevoice recognition system 26 and not the operator specific files 38,which normally cannot be corrected in commercial voice recognitionengines in the time constraints necessary for real-time transcription.Consequently, if the call assistant 12 encounters the same word again inthe training process or during an actual relay call, the voicerecognition system 26 will again translate the word incorrectly,requiring a manual correction by the call assistant 12 each time theword is used.

[0026] This repeated mistranslation could be avoided, however, bymodification of the operator specific files 38 in the voice recognitionsystem 26. It is possible to use them same internal correction system ofthe voice recognition system 26 that is used when reading pre-selectedtraining passages 42 in the voice recognition system 26 (describe above)to modify the operator specific files 38. However, this learning processis time consuming, making it prohibitive to do such a correction withinthe voice recognition system 26 during a relay call.

[0027] It is possible, however, to “train” the voice recognition system26 without disrupting a relay call. At periodic intervals during thetraining process (i.e. the end of each day) the correction unit(described in detail below) can be asked to supply a list of words thatneeded to be corrected in the output text file 28 during the course of atraining call. Each call assistant 12 then devises sentences containingeach of the corrected words to provide a context for the voicerecognition system 26. The call assistant 12 then reads the sentencesinto the voice recognition system 26 and makes any necessary correctionsutilizing the standard correction system of the commercial voicerecognition engine. While this process is slow, the correction processdoes not take place during relay operation. Thus, a call assistant 12 isable to modify the operator specific files 38 without having to disrupta relay training call or fundamentally modify a commercial speechrecognition engine. It should be obvious to one skilled in the art thatthis process of training the voice recognition system 26 to modifyoperator specific files 38 without having to disrupt a relay call canalso be utilized during actual relay operation as well as during therelay training process.

[0028] Referring now to FIGS. 1 and 4, the linked scripts 20 can beaugmented to better prepare the call assistant 12 to handle actual relaycalls. Thus the linked script 20 can be not simply a monologue in orderfor the call assistant 12 practice the technique of re-voicing, but maybe a simulated two-person conversation in order for the call assistant12 to have the illusion of an actual relay call. To simulate atwo-person conversation, the voice portion 22 of the linked script 20 isdivided into two parts, a first part 48 simulating the contribution tothe conversation of a hearing caller 44 and a second part 50 simulatingthe contribution of a hearing-impaired caller 46. The first part 48 andthe second part 50 would alternate so as to simulate a two-wayconversation.

[0029] The call assistant 12 would re-voice the first part 48,simulating the re-voicing the voice of the hearing caller 44 into textfor a hearing-impaired caller 46, but would not re-voice the second part50, simulating the hearing-impaired caller 46 speaking to the hearingcaller 44 without any transcription necessary. The volume of the secondpart 50 could be lowered or the second part 50 could otherwise bedistinguished from the first part 48 to make the re-voicing processeasier for the call assistant 12. The training device 10 is programmedso that the second part 50 would not be played until the call assistant12 had finished re-voicing the first part 48 as indicated by a completetransmission of the text for the first part.

[0030] Additionally, the linked scripts 20 can be varied in other waysto prepare the call assistant 12 to handle actual relay calls. Forexample, the speed of the voice portion 22 can be increased to simulatea caller who speaks very fast. The voice portion 22 can also be variedto simulate a caller who speaks with an accent, has a speech impedimentto improve the ability of the call assistant 12 to handle such callswhen actually handling relay calls.

[0031] Referring now to FIGS. 2 and 6, the training process can includethe additional step of correcting transcription errors duringre-voicing. This is accomplished by including in the training device 10a display screen 34 and a correction unit 36 and a correction programoperated as follows. As the call assistant 12 re-voices the linkedscript (not shown) and the voice recognition system 26 transcribes thevoice of the call assistant 12, the resulting output text 35 appears onthe display screen 34. If the call assistant 12 notices anytranscription errors by the voice recognition system 26, she correctsthem using a correction unit 36 before the voice recognition system 26produces an output text file 28. In the preferred embodiment of theinvention, the display screen 34 contains a touch screen that allows thecall assistant 12 to touch the incorrect word on the screen and type thecorrect word using a keyboard 37 or to speak the correct word into themicrophone 18 and voice recognition system 26 on the correction unit 36.Statistics on the correction process, for example, how many correctionsoccurred and how quickly the corrections were made, can be incorporatedinto the report 32 to be described.

[0032] In another embodiment of the invention, the display screen 34 canbe divided into different sections. One section, the text box 54, can beused to display the output text 35 from the voice recognition system 26for correction as described above. Other sections can be used for otherdisplays, such as a pause time indicator 56 (described in detail below)or for other functions, such as touch screen buttons 58 to control thefunction of the training device 10.

[0033] Referring now to FIGS. 1, 5, and 6, the training device 10includes in one embodiment a foot pedal 52 or other switch to stop theplayback of the voice portion 22 of the linked script 20. The ability topause the voice portion 22 simulates the buffering of the caller's voicein an actual relay system and is necessary if the call assistant 12 lagsbehind in re-voicing or needs to make a correction. The amount of timethat the playback is paused can be displayed on the display screen 34 inthe form of a pause time indicator 56 to simulate the amount of voicebuffered in a voice buffer on an actual relay system. The statistics ofthe pause time indicator, e.g. total pause time, peak delay caused bypausing, number of pauses, can be recorded by the system and provided inthe report 32.

[0034] Referring now to FIGS. 1 and 7, the output text file 28 from thevoice recognition system 26 can be compared to the text portion 24 ofthe linked script 20 using a comparison program 30, also executed on thecomputer. This step is indicated in step 66 of FIG. 7 and is most easilyperformed if the same computer system used to play the linked scripts 20implements the speech recognition engine 26 and receives the output textfile 28. The comparison can be made before or after the call assistant12 has had an opportunity to correct any transcription errors using theprocess described above and before and after statistics provided in thereport 32.

[0035] As mentioned above, the comparison program 30 produces a report32 showing the performance of the call assistant 12 in re-voicing aparticular linked script 20 and various performance statistics. Thecomparison program 30 may be generated by a special program reading thetext portion 24 and the output text file 28 as executed by a computeraccording to methods well understood in the art for comparing textdocuments to create the report 32. The report can show the performanceof the call assistant 12 according to a variety of criteria includingthe number of words of the text output not matching the text portion ofthe linked script (errors) and the number of corrections made. If thelinked script 20 in a particular training session was a simulatedtwo-part conversation, the comparison program 30 can record the numberof times that the call assistant 12 re-voiced the wrong part of thevoice portion 22 (i.e. the hearing impaired caller's voice) and displaythat data on the report 32. The report 32 can also display data acquiredfrom the voice recognition system 26 such as the speed at which the callassistant was able to re-voice and the total time that the playback ofthe voice portion 22 was paused. Composite measures that combine two ormore criteria (e.g., total number of transcribed words—errors, per unittime) can also be calculated by the training device 10 and displayed onthe report 32. The measurement of the skill of a call assistant 12 asdisplayed on the report 32 can be used to measure the performance of thecall assistant 12 as she progress through training.

[0036] Referring now to FIGS. 1 and 8, the training process and devicedescribed above can be used in another embodiment to train callassistants 12 in methods of performing a relay call other than there-voicing technique. For example, in a traditional relay call, the callassistant 12 does not re-voice the hearing person's voice, but insteadtypes what the hearing person says on a standard QWERTY keyboard or in amanner similar to that used by court reporters and the like. In thisembodiment of the training device 10, there is no microphone 18connected to a voice recognition system 26. Instead, there is typingkeyboard 27. The choice of typing keyboard 27 or other input device is amatter of user preference and does not change the operation of thetraining device 10. The output text file 28 obtained from the typingkeyboard 27 then sent to the comparison system 30 to be compared withthe linked script 20. The output text file 28 of the typing keyboard 27can then be compared to the text portion 24 of the linked script 20 toobtain a report 32 containing various performance criteria as describedabove.

[0037] It is specifically intended that the present invention not belimited to the embodiments and illustrations contained herein, but thatmodified forms of those embodiments including portions of theembodiments and combinations of elements of different embodiments alsobe included as come within the scope of the following claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for training a relay call assistantcomprising the steps of: (a) communicating a voice portion of a linkedscript having corresponding text and voice portions to a call assistantto be trained; (b) permitting a re-voicing by the operator of the voiceportion to a computerized speech recognition system providing are-voiced text corresponding to the operator's re-voicing; and (c)comparing the text script to the re-voiced text to produce a measure ofoperator skill.
 2. The method as claimed in claim 1, where the measureof operator skill indicates a number of words of the text output notmatching the text script.
 3. The method as claimed in claim 1, where themeasure of operator skill indicates a rate of re-voicing.
 4. The methodas claimed in claim 1, where the measure of operator skill indicates acomposite of rate of re-voicing and a number of words of the text outputnot matching the text script.
 5. The method as claimed in claim 1,including the further step of displaying the re-voiced text output tothe operator for correction prior to step (c).
 6. The method as claimedin claim 1, where the computerized speech recognition system includesoperator specific files and vocabulary files and including the step oftraining the computerized speech recognition system for a specificoperator to generate the operator specific files.
 7. The method asclaimed in claim 6, where the operator specific files are modified torepresent typical telephonic conversation vocabularies.
 8. The method asclaimed in claim 6, where the step of training the computerized voicerecognition system comprises the step of: (a) compiling a list of wordsincorrectly translated by the computerized voice recognition systemwhile re-voicing the text script; (b) devising sentences containingthose words to provide context for the computerized voice recognitionsystem; (c) reading those sentences into the voice recognition system;and (d) correcting the incorrectly translated words using the correctionfunction of the computerized voice recognition system.
 9. The method asclaimed in claim 1, where the voice and text script simulates abi-directional conversation having a first part to be re-voiced and asecond part not to be re-voiced.
 10. The method as claimed in claim 9,where the voice script is modified for the second part to bedistinguishable auditory.
 11. The method as claimed in claim 9, wherethe measure of operator skill provides a higher measure of operatorskill for a number of words of the text output matching the first partof the script and a lower measure of operator skill for a number ofwords of the text output matching the second part of the script.
 12. Themethod as claimed in claim 1, including the further step of acceptingfrom the operator a pause signal causing a ceasing of the communicationof the voice portion such as simulates a pausing of a voice bufferrecorder.
 13. The method as claimed in claim 1, including the furtherstep of displaying to the operator an indication of total pause timesuch as simulates a buffer capacity display.
 14. An apparatus fortraining a call assistant comprising: a set of linked scripts simulatingdifferent transcription scenarios; a script player communicating a voiceportion of a selected script to an operator to be trained; acomputerized speech recognition system receiving a re-voicing of thevoice portion by the operator to produce a re-voiced text outputcorresponding to the operator's re-voicing; and a text comparison devicecomparing the text script to the re-voiced text output to produce ameasure of operator skill identified to the particular selected script.15. The apparatus as claimed in claim 14, where the scripts differaccording to criteria selected from the group consisting of:intelligibility of the speaker average word rate; peak word rate; andfrequency of words prone to misinterpretation by the computer voicerecognition system.
 16. The apparatus as claimed in claim 14, where themeasure of operator skill indicates a number of words of the text outputnot matching the text script.
 17. The apparatus as claimed in claim 14,where the measure of operator skill indicates a rate of re-voicing. 18.The apparatus as claimed in claim 14, where the measure of operatorskill indicates a composite of the rate of re-voicing and a number ofwords of the text output not matching the text script.
 19. The apparatusas claimed in claim 14, further including a display screen to displaythe re-voiced text output to the operator for correction.
 20. Theapparatus as claimed in claim 14, where the computerized speechrecognition system includes operator specific files and vocabulary fileswhere the operator specific files are generated and modified by asepcific operator.
 21. The apparatus as claimed in claim 20, where theoperator specific files reflect typical conversational vocabularies. 22.The apparatus as claimed in claim 14, where the voice and text scriptsimulates a bi-directional conversation having a first part to bere-voiced and a second part not to be re-voiced.
 23. The apparatus asclaimed in claim 22, where the voice script is modified for the secondpart to distinguishable auditorily.
 24. The apparatus as claimed inclaim 14, where the measure of operator skill provides a higher measureof operator skill for a number of words of the text output matchingfirst part of the script and a lower measure of operator skill for anumber of words matching the second part of the script.
 25. Theapparatus as claimed in claim 14, further including a switch to allowthe operator to transmit a pause signal causing a ceasing ofcommunication of the voice portion such as simulates a pausing of avoice buffer recorder.
 26. The apparatus as claimed in claim 25, wherethe switch is a foot pedal.
 27. The apparatus as claimed in claim 14,further including a display for displaying to the operator an indicationof total pause time such as simulates a buffer display capacity.
 28. Amethod for training a call assistant comprising the steps of: (a)communicating a voice portion of a linked script having correspondingtext and voice portions to a call assistant to be trained; (b)permitting the typing by the operator of the voice portion into acomputer providing a text file of the output of the operator's typing;and (c) comparing the text script to the typing output to produce ameasure of operator skill.
 29. The method as claimed in claim 28, wherethe measure of operator skill indicates a number of words of the typingoutput not matching the text script.
 30. The method as claimed in claim28, where the measure of operator skill indicates a rate of typing. 31.The method as claimed in claim 28, where the measure of operator skillindicates a composite of rate of typing and a number of words of thetyping output not matching the text script.
 32. The method as claimed inclaim 28, including the further step of displaying the typing output tothe operator for correction prior to step (c).
 33. The method as claimedin claim 28, where the voice and text script simulates a bi-directionalconversation having a first part to be typed and a second part not to betyped.
 34. The method as claimed in claim 33, where the voice script ismodified for the second part to be distinguishable auditorily.
 35. Themethod as claimed in claim 33, where the measure of operator skillprovides a higher measure of operator skill for a number of words of thetyping output matching the first part of the script and a lower measureof operator skill for a number of words of the typing output matchingthe second part of the script.
 36. The method as claimed in claim 28,including the further step of accepting from the operator a pause signalcausing a ceasing of the communication of the voice portion such assimulates a pausing of a voice buffer recorder.
 37. The method asclaimed in claim 28, including the further step of displaying to theoperator an indication of total pause time such as simulates a bufferdisplay capacity.
 38. An apparatus for training a call assistantcomprising: a set of linked scripts simulating different transcriptionscenarios; a script player communicating a voice portion of a selectedscript to an operator to be trained; an input device receiving a typingof the voice portion by the operator to produce a typing output; and atext comparison device comparing the text script to the typing output toproduce a measure of operator skill identified to the particularselected script.
 39. The apparatus as claimed in claim 37, where thescripts differ according to criteria selected from the group consistingof: intelligibility of the speaker; average word rate; peak word rate;and frequency of words that are difficult to type.
 40. The apparatus asclaimed in claim 37, where the measure of operator skill indicates anumber of words of the text output not matching the text script.
 41. Theapparatus as claimed in claim 37, where the measure of operator skillindicates a rate of typing.
 42. The apparatus as claimed in claim 37,where the measure of operator skill indicates a composite of the rate oftyping and a number of words of the typing output not matching the textscript.
 43. The apparatus as claimed in claim 37, further including adisplay screen to display the typing output to the operator forcorrection.
 44. The apparatus as claimed in claim 37, where the voiceand text script simulates a bi-directional conversation having a firstpart to be typed and second part not to be typed.
 45. The apparatus asclaimed in claim 44, where the voice script is modified for the secondpart to be distinguishable auditorily.
 46. The apparatus as claimed inclaim 37, where the measure of operator skill provides a higher measureof operator skill for a number of words of the typing output matchingthe first part of the script and a lower measure of the operator skillfor a number of words matching the second part of the script.
 47. Theapparatus as claimed in claim 37, further including a switch to allowthe operator to transmit a pause signal causing a ceasing ofcommunication of the voice portion such as simulates a pausing of avoice buffer recorder.
 48. The apparatus as claimed in claim 47, wherethe switch is a foot pedal
 49. The apparatus as claimed in claim 37,further including a display for displaying to the operator an indicationof total pause time such as simulates a buffer display capacity.
 50. Amethod for using a commercial voice recognition system for telephonerelay calls comprising the steps of: (a) re-voicing spoken words into acommercial voice recognition system; (b) correcting the output text ofthe voice recognition system for mistranslations; (c) compiling a listof corrected words from the voice recognition system; and (d) using thelist of corrected words to modify the voice recognition system.